Week In Review: Manufacturing, Test


Chipmakers TSMC posted its results for the quarter and confirmed its long-awaited plans to build a fab in Japan. It’s not a leading-edge fab, but rather a plant for 28nm/22nm processes. “The company confirmed plans to build a new fab in Japan for 22nm + 28nm,” said Aaron Rakers, an analyst at Wells Fargo, in a research note. “An average 22/28nm fab costs ~$4-5B range per 45k wspm. Fab ... » read more

CEO Outlook: It Gets Much Harder From Here


Semiconductor Engineering sat down to discuss what's changing across the semiconductor industry with Wally Rhines, CEO emeritus at Mentor, a Siemens Business; Jack Harding, president and CEO of eSilicon; John Kibarian, president and CEO of PDF Solutions; and John Chong, vice president of product and business development for Kionix. What follows are excerpts of that discussion, which was held in... » read more

Manufacturing Bits: April 3


World's brightest accelerator Japan’s High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK) is readying what is considered the world’s most luminous or brightest particle accelerator. The system, dubbed the SuperKEKB, combines an electron-positron collider with a new and advanced detector. The storage ring system is designed to explore and measure rare decays of elementary particles, such... » read more

Making Drones Secure


Critics have accused drones of creating multiple dangers, including invading privacy, colliding with other aircraft, threatening personal safety and even frightening livestock. Yet the biggest drone threat of all may turn out to be attacks made on the vehicles themselves. Drones, also known as UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) and UASs (unmanned aerial systems), need a variety of internal ... » read more

System Bits: March 3


Observing antiferromagnetic order in ultracold atoms Rice University researchers have simulated superconducting materials and made headway on a problem that’s vexed physicists for nearly three decades using ultracold atoms as a stand-in for electrons. The research team, led by Rice, included researchers from Ohio State University, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, University of Cal... » read more